talking about Jean Michel Jarre...

[Gert van Santen]

March 25. Went to see Jean Michel Jarre 
in Carr? Amsterdam. It was 33 years ago 
that I had been to the "Royal Theatre" 
to see the (then) magnificent Genesis 
including Peter Gabriel for their ?The 
Lamb lies down on Broadway? tour, after 
which Gabriel left the band.

After seeing The Cure?s brilliant show 
last week, JMJ was a nice evening out 
with my good friend Rolf, although a bit 
disappointing at times, and, music-wise, 
sometimes even boring.

Jarre himself, although not a great live 
player, behaved like he was God?s gift 
to music audiences. Some of the stuff he 
did, was too loud, drowning the rest of 
the band, and at moments just sounded 
wrong (especially when doing the thing 
with the "curtain rail", as Rolf called it).
The songs from the album Oxygen were 
less interesting than I remembered, 
although many of the sounds were 
awesome. It was very nice to see all 
those old machines on stage ? heaven for 
vintage synth lovers! A lot of EMS 
stuff, Moogs and an ARP 2600, but I also 
saw recent gear, like the Alesis 
Andromeda and a Boss RE-20 delay. 
Anyhow, after a while I decided for 
myself that Equinoxe is way better than 
Oxygen.
The encore was a big chill. One short 
track. Around 10:00 pm we were outside 
again.

One other thing I would like to mention, 
is, that JMJ certainly wasn?t worth the 
money I paid. 102 euros for some 90 
minutes of music. The Cure was 34 euros 
for 3 hours and 15 minutes of much more 
exciting stuff.

Check out some pictures here:
http://www.gertvansanten.nl/gallery/?gallery=music/jmj
-- 

:-)

G e r t  v a n  S a n t e n
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www.gertvansanten.nl
www.myspace.com/pbalris
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